The American news site Axios, citing three informed Israeli and American sources, revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed US President Joe Biden on Sunday that Israel has no choice but to launch a ground military operation in Gaza, and said, “We must enter the Strip.”

Netanyahu added in his call that Israel has no other choice but to respond with force because a country cannot show weakness in the Middle East, stressing that Israel needs to restore deterrence, according to sources.

For his part, Biden raised the issue of the Israeli hostages in Gaza during the call, but Netanyahu informed him of the necessity of entering Gaza, and that negotiation is not possible at the present time.

According to Axios, Netanyahu's message indicates what Israel's response to the Hamas attack will look like in the coming days and weeks, while the Israeli Prime Minister said it will be a "long and difficult war."

According to an American source, Biden is expected to deal with the current Gaza war in a similar way to how he dealt with the Gaza war in 2021. The United States has provided public support for Israel, and has held frequent diplomatic contacts with Netanyahu and other leaders in the region.

Biden asked Netanyahu during the call about a scenario in which a second front would be opened along the Israeli-Lebanese border, and Netanyahu responded that the presence of a front on the Lebanese border is a source of concern, and that Israel is preparing for this scenario, but he stressed that it has no other choice but to respond with great force in Gaza.

The Lebanese Hezbollah announced that a number of its members were killed as a result of the Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon yesterday, Monday, and said that it attacked with missiles two Israeli army centers in the Galilee region in an “initial response.”

Israeli Channel 12 reported that 6 Israeli soldiers were injured - one of them in critical condition - as a result of an armed attack in the border area in southern Lebanon, claimed by the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement.

The Israeli army had announced that gunmen had infiltrated the border from the Lebanese side, and said that its forces had killed two of them, while a third gunman fled back to Lebanon.

The Israeli army announced yesterday, Monday, that it had mobilized 300,000 reserve soldiers - the largest number of reserve soldiers called to service in decades - as part of preparations for a possible ground attack in Gaza.

Last Saturday morning, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), launched the unprecedented military operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel, which included the firing of thousands of rockets, infiltration operations, and storming of Israeli settlements and military sites around the Gaza Strip.

Source: Axios